Meal delivery services are all the rage – get all the ingredients shipped right to your house, all that’s left is to cook! But there’s a problem with current offerings like Home Chef and Blue Apron (at least in my eyes). Their directions lead customers into overcooking their steaks.
What’s a Suvie?
Enter “Suvie”. Suvie is a new physical sous vide oven unlike any machine you’ve seen before and has already raised $500,000 with 15 days to go on their Kickstarter.
The Suvie machine actually has 4 different cooking zones, each specialized to cook a specific ingredient to perfection. There’s a sous vide protein zone, a vegetable steam cooking zone, a starch zone, and a sauces/garnish zone.
You load water into a side reservoir, and the Suvie machine will distribute it as needed, when needed. The really interesting thing is the Suvie is actually a refrigerator as well – you can load your dinner into the machine in the morning and program it to start cooking so it’s done right when you get home from work.
The only other sous vide machine on the market that currently has refrigeration fully built-in is Mellow, which is a smaller device with one cooking zone.
The Suvie is a “smart” device which can connect to your home WiFi. You can then connect to your device on your smartphone via the Suvie mobile app to check the status of your cook, as well as starting or canceling your cook. The Suvie can also keep your food warm until you get home in case you get delayed on your way home from work.
You Mentioned Meal Subscriptions?
That’s right, Suvie is not only about this physical oven, but also a meal subscription service that you can optionally enroll in.
Suvie’s meal service is a bit different from existing options, as it lets you completely customize your dishes however you like, which is interesting. They also offer chef recommendations for ideal combinations.
The subscription service is completely optional – you can buy and use your own ingredients if you wish. They estimate the initial prices per serving will be $10-12, which is more or less in line with existing food subscription services.
Is the Suvie Worth It?
Here comes the $600 question – is the Suvie worth buying?
At the retail price of $600 (plus shipping and handling), the Suvie seems too expensive in my eyes. You could buy a new stainless steel kitchen oven for that price! The Suvie is such a niche concept, who knows how much you’ll really end up using it or if it seems like too much of a hassle. Also, granted it comes from a startup, what happens if they run out of funding?
This seems like too early of a product for me to invest in personally, but if you think this device would save you a ton of time (Suvie claims it can save you 6 hours per week) and you’re willing to trust that it will cook all ingredients well, then it may be worth your money.
Another thing to consider is the delivery date – currently scheduled for the earliest batch of devices to be delivered Dec 2018, but most of these spots are already sold out leaving you with an estimated delivery date of June 2019. I’ve experienced first-hand the delays that are likely to occur when a company makes their first attempt at manufacturing a complex electronic product, so I would be shocked if Suvie was able to stick to these delivery dates, but maybe they built in enough runway to make it likely. Either way, I’m hopeful for this product and hope its performance matches its price tag.